iPhone 7/7 Plus Thoughts


New Home Button

The iPhone 7 has a new home button that doesn't click. Instead, the haptic motor gives a thump to simulate a click. This is similar to what Apple did with newer laptops, which honestly, I probably would think was still a mechanical click if it wasn't a highlighted feature.

The iPhone 7 is a little different, less natural feel, but I like it. It took a bit to get used to the feel and rewire my brain for the physical response. It doesn't really change usability, but for me it changes the experience in a good way. It's sort of drive-by-wire fun that makes the device just feel more advanced. You can also set the intensity for the tap between three levels for your liking. As a bonus, generally the home button gets a lot of miles and tends to wear out or break, so this should be a nice change for durability.

The New Black and the Other New Black

The footnote for the new Jet Black warns that it will scratch and if you're concerned with that you should use a case. It seems kind of silly to heavily promote a new color only to recommend covering it, but whatever. I played it safe and went with the regular matte black.

The matte black I think looks great and reminds me of the iPhone 5, which I really liked. Hopefully, however, this treatment won't scratch off like we saw with the iPhone 5.

Camera Zoom

The iPhone 7 Plus has two camera, one that offers a 2x optical zoom. You can toggle between cameras by touching the 1x/2x indicator in the Camera App. Additional digital zoom is available, although things can get a little grainy as you'd expect. This works well, although it seems the iPhone 7 doesn't always utilize the telephoto lens if lighting conditions aren't good enough. It seems this results in a digital zoom using the regular lens, but there's no indication of what's going on.

Camera CPU

Which brings us to the iPhone's image signal processor. Apple says it performs 100 billion operations for your photo to make it the best possible. You can't really argue a mobile phone will ever match a DSLR, but Apple is working hard to do everything possible with the available optics and sensors. As always, the best camera is the one you've got with you, and iPhone 7, particularly the 7 Plus, makes the best argument yet for leaving the DSLR home.

Flashlight/Flash

The iPhone 7 sports a four LED dual tone flash. Meaning it's brighter and capable of adjusting light temperature for your scene. It is certainly brighter. Not only for pictures, but the old flashlight hack is much brighter and offers a better spotlight.

Improved Display

It's hard for me to really evaluate the LCD. New phones to me aways seem brighter and more brilliant just due to age. After using a device extensively for a year and flipping on a new phone, the fresh LCD and glass always looks better. All I can say is it looks great. 25% better? Sure.

Speakers

I was very interested the iPhone 7 adding a second speaker, but I don't think it really works how I'd hope. I often set my phone down and just listen to something. I'm not holding it, or even looking at the screen. Here, the added speaker doesn't do much for me. I don't find it significantly louder. While holding the iPhone 7, however, it is louder and the quality seems better. it also offers stereo sound, but not sure there's really enough separation between speakers to make that much of a difference. Basically it's louder and clearer when viewing the screen.

A10 CPU

Snappier? Yes. The iPhone 7 feels notably more responsive compared to the iPhone 6s. iOS 10 has some nice animations that I think make it feel faster, and perhaps it is actually faster. After using the beta most of the summer, it seems the iPhone 7 adds on to that for a nice improvements across the board.

Battery Life

The iPhone 7 offers up to two hours and 7 Plus up to one hour over the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Comparing the plus models, I'm not sure it's that big of a deal, but I do seem to end the day with a little extra battery life. Of course, things are still new and initial battery life tends to take a hit as it's fun to test and tinker with a new phone.

Water and Dust Resistance

To me, this is a piece of mind thing. I don't see myself regularly getting the phone wet or dirty, but it's nice to know it's there. Eventually there will be days when I'll let it get wet or dirty when normally I would baby it.

Headphone jack

This is a pretty tired topic. For me though, the biggest issue will probably be driving when I want to charge the phone while plugging it into the stereo's aux input. Other than that, I'm fine with Bluetooth headphones and keeping a few adapters around.